Part 5/10:
European colonizers in the 1600s and 1700s sought rationalizations for enslaving Africans. They developed racial hierarchy frameworks to legitimize exploitation, with influential thinkers like Johan Blumenbach, a German anthropologist, categorizing humans into distinct races. Blumenbach's goal was to organize observable traits, not to establish racial superiority. He believed that differences arose from environment and education, and emphasized the innate equality of human intellect, rooted in his Christian beliefs.